Greece's Deepening Health Crisis Due to Austerity Measures

A new study reveals that healthcare budget cuts are linked to the increasing inability of patients to access the health system, the rise in the incidence of infectious diseases, and deterioration of the overall mental health of Greek people.

Researchers at the University of Oxford (United Kingdom), the University of Cambridge (United Kingdom), and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (United Kingdom) have found that Greece has had the largest cutbacks to the health sector seen across Europe, as the bailout package capped public expenditure at 6% of the gross domestic product (GDP). For example, from 2009 to 2011, the public hospital budget was reduced by over 25%. Greece's public spending on health is now less than any of the other pre-2004 European Union members.

Greece's bailout agreement also stipulated shifting the cost of healthcare to patients, resulting in new charges for visits to outpatient clinics, higher costs for medicines, and eroding health services. In addition, the rapidly increasing unemployment rate since 2009 meant a growing number of people no longer had any form of health cover, with an estimated 800,000 without unemployment benefits or the ability to access health services. As a result, a 47% rise was seen in people who felt they did not receive medically necessary healthcare.

Signs of the deterioration in healthcare in Greece include a more than 10-fold rise in HIV incidence in injecting drug-users of from 2009 to 2012; a doubling of tuberculosis (TB) incidence among injecting drug users; a decrease in state funding for mental health of 55% between 2011 and 2012; a 2.5 fold increase in major depression between 2008 and 2011; a 45% increase in suicide rates between 2007 and 2011; a dramatic 43% increase in infant mortality between 2008 and 2010; and a 3% increase in the proportion of children at risk of poverty between 2007 and 2011. The study was published on February 22, 2014, in the Lancet.

“The data reveals that the Greek welfare state has failed to protect people at the time they needed support the most,” said lead author sociologist Alexander Kentikelenis, MPhil, of Cambridge University. “A rapidly growing number of Greeks are losing access to healthcare from budget cuts and unemployment.”

“The Greek government, along with their European partners, appears to have been in denial about austerity's severe impact on health,” said senior author David Stuckler, MPH, PhD, of the University of Oxford. “The cost of austerity is being borne mainly by ordinary Greek citizens, who have been affected by the largest cutbacks to the health sector seen across Europe in modern times. We hope this research will help the Greek government mount an urgently needed response to these escalating human crises.”

Greece's economic crisis has deepened since it was bailed out by the international community in 2010. The country underwent the sixth consecutive year of economic contraction in 2013, with its economy shrinking by 20% between 2008 and 2012. Unemployment has more than tripled, from 7.7% in 2008 to 24.3% in 2012, and long-term unemployment has reached 14.4%.

Related Links:
University of Oxford
University of Cambridge 
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine